


Kissed By Fire

by GreekOracle



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Everyone Is Gay, F/F, F/M, Fix-It, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I'm not kidding, M/M, No holds barred, Rebirth, oh yeah, release the gays, warning for game of thrones-type shit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 14:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19907203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreekOracle/pseuds/GreekOracle
Summary: Reborn into the world of Game of Thrones, Karalyn Stark was forced into scrambling to form a game plan, so her family would survive the incoming onslaught.A sham marriage here, orchestrating a war there, falling in love with a lady somewhere else. There was so many more to change, and Karalyn worried if there may even be any time.





	Kissed By Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I took some liberties with how Jon was brought back from the war, and how Stamina Actually Works.

In the dead of night, she was born sleeping.

Catelyn had always thought the inclusion of Silent Sisters during the birth of a child was a strange, morbid machination. Standing just outside the torches’ reach, shrouded in their robes and heads bowed low with sad, solemn expressions; if one tried, they’d hardly notice them, but Catelyn couldn’t help but regard them. Saw them huddle inside like cattle when the process was underway, registered with blurry vision as the lights flickered and dimmed and she screamed and panted from the exertion. 

The maesters and maids were a more welcome sight, encouraging her with tremulous voices and patting her thigh or squeezing her hand in reassurance. At least they weren’t soundless, weren’t creeping about a room like cockroaches who weren’t meant to be there. The Sisters remained without voice, waiting, like a harbinger of terrible news. Catelyn knew what they were there for, that their duty required such a sombre display and couldn’t be dallied on.

Only, she didn’t expect that they needed to perform the said duty that night. Of all nights, it couldn’t be worse.

Her vision was swimming and she felt drowned in perspiration when the maester’s voice rose above an incessant whistle of her ears.

“She’s a girl.”

Yet, Catelyn couldn’t hear any other sound. Just still silence, not even the faintest wail. Not a wisp of breath. Her own froze in her lungs.

Maester Luwin turned to face the Sisters, instead of her and Ned.

“Where is she?” Catelyn said, reaching out to beckon them close to her. “I want to see her.”

She knew her voice couldn’t be above a whisper, even when her head pounded with every word. It had been a painful delivery, one that left her grasping everything slotted into her fingers and damn near pulling Ned’s hand right from his arm. But she laced her words with a firm, final note, one that left Maester Luwin flinching in the corner of her eye.

“My lady…”

“Let us see her.” That was Ned, with his deep, calm voice. There was the hint of a tremble in it, though. “As is our right.”

It wasn’t as if the Sisters could provide a counter-argument. Maester Luwin shuffled close, and one of the maids nearest to Catelyn braced her while she arranged the pillows so her lady could sit up comfortably. Every inch of Catelyn’s body beyond her torso ached and pulsed, but all was forgotten when Luwin slid her child into her weak arms.

She first noted, that her daughter could have been beautiful.

There was no seeing past the wrinkled skin, no ignoring the pale flesh where it should be flushed a deep red, no denying that her eyes were sealed shut and not a sound passed tight, thin lips. 

But tufts of coppery, red hair, much like Catelyn’s spilt from her head in curled tangles. As round as her face was, her chin jutted slightly, the telltale sign of Ned’s long face. 

She could have been perfect, and because of that, Catelyn wept.

She wept for her daughter, that she was robbed of any chance to experience this world, cruel as it may be. For Ned, whose face lit up when Catelyn told him of her pregnancy and words carried a soft timbre whenever he spoke to her swollen belly. For her damn self, because it seemed like a child could have concluded the marriage as a happy one. 

A smaller part of her ached for Lysa, who’d already suffered a miscarriage similar to this. Who had become despondent, the last time Catelyn spoke with her, world-weary and stricken with perpetual, dull grief, that left her looking older when she was Catelyn’s baby sister. The other ladies in this world, who went through the same. Ached for herself, for not considering this a possibility; only a world of hurt came from making that mistake.

Ned hovered above her, his touch gentle and presence warm. Luwin wrung his hands at her bedside, considering the Starks with a thoughtful look.

“Would you like to name her?”

Ned looked to Catelyn. The answer bubbled in her throat.

 _Yes_. “No.”

She returned Ned’s glance, and saw his eyes, brimming with an onset of grief. Her own matched it. “I don’t want to.”

They would name her on their own. 

Ned nodded. “Then, so be it.”

This would be their grief to bear.

Ned pressed a kiss to Catelyn’s forehead, chaste and sweet, and Catelyn conveyed the affection to their daughter. She was already cold, like the nighttime summer chill.

She smothered a sob and almost choked on it as she handed the child to Luwin. There was a sad understanding in his eyes, sombre and pensive. She knew the Starks’ maester had shared their joy in expecting a child, only to become the first to hold a stillborn instead.

He walked to the Sisters, exchanging a few, inaudible words, before giving them the baby. The air was thick with quiet and finality, the maids standing off to the side in sober tranquillity and Ned and Catelyn locked in an embrace. Despite herself, Catelyn watched Luwin and the Sisters.

Watched them pivot toward the doors, stride towards it in silence. 

Watched, as they were about to open them, and the lit torch that burned beside it tip over so abruptly a gasp betrayed her. 

Watched the Sisters jump back, saw as the fire licked her daughter’s forehead.

And watched, then heard, as her daughter came to life with a wail from the flames.

~*~

Her name was Karalyn Stark, and they said she was kissed by fire.

A small patch of skin, starting from her forehead, had formed burned scar tissue. It was wrinkled and veined and a fleshy red, spreading out minimally at the start and receding into a pointed end above her right brow. Her mother had told her the story of her birth, and it was a tale she loved to swap around with the squires, the handmaidens, the servants. Anyone who liked to listen, really.

Her father was among the best of them, would stay silent and sit at her bedside as she recounted her experiences of the day before. He wasn’t a man who knew many fairytales to lull her to sleep – no, that was Old Nan’s area of expertise. But when he did agree to tuck her in, to draw the furs to her chin and kissed her scarred forehead, it was him who would be regaled with a library of anecdotes, ranging from fiction to fact.

She told him of dragons and high towers, filled to the brim with golden antiquities. She told him of speaking toads and princesses with gentle hearts. She told him of a new, different world, where the people choose their leaders and told him about the wars that splintered among them.

She told him of her life, both old and new. 

“You know plenty of stories, little wolf,” he had said to her one night after she guided Robb to sleep with the story of a princess and her seven dwarves, then a lullaby Ned had never heard before.

She smiled up from her blankets. “Old Nan taught me some. The rest, I just know.”

“You just know,” Ned echoed, clearly bemused. He bent down and kissed her forehead to complete the daily ritual. “Then you know a great deal, Kara.”

“I do,” Kara confirmed. “And I’ll teach Robb it all, along with the others.”

Ned raised a brow. “The others?”

“Goodnight, father.”

He shook his head, with the tight line of his seemingly unwavering lips curling into a smile. When he blew the candle, the room was drenched in darkness.

Three days later, Kara was playing sticks with Robb when Ned came and introduced them to Jon Snow. 

_Your half-brother_.

Ned afforded her with an unreadable look as she offered Jon a branch, and Robb jumped to challenge the then-timid boy to a mock sword fight. While cryptic, she could see the questions floating in his face, but what use could a grown man gain from interrogating a four-year-old?

Instead, she smiled at her new father. Brought back from his reverie, Ned returned it tenderly.

The boys were two, then, flailing about with their branches with only an approximation of what a proper sword fight looked like. Robb had more form, as much as a two-year-old could have, from watching Winterfell’s knights spar under the watchful eye of Ser Rodrik. Jon, less so, but he made up for it with brute strength as he was a deal broader than Robb. Lanky, still, but Robb was far more willowy.

Karalyn doubted that Robb understood what half-brother meant; he knew what a brother meant, however, and seemed content to accept Jon as one. During supper, he unwrapped two lemon cakes that he snuck from the kitchens within a napkin. Some of the maids liked to press such pastries into his hand, for how adorable he was, but rarely two – he could barely finish one and a half, and the other half usually went to Karalyn instead. This time, however, he readily handed one to Jon. The latter would have taken it if Catelyn’s sharp glower didn’t deter Robb first.

Catelyn didn’t show any blatant or vocal disapproval towards Jon; she wasn’t so cruel she would mistreat an infant in such a way, but she did look a good deal cross with Ned and wasn’t afraid to let her thoughts on the matter show. There was some sympathy in Karalyn’s gut for her father, but while what he did was honourable, it didn’t detract from the foolishness. Catelyn deeming this as betrayal was justified, and it was up to Ned to soothe her ruffled feathers.

That was why Karalyn was left to her own devices, to tuck herself in or allow Old Nan to do so. Instead, she relegated the old woman to care for Robb and held Jon’s small hand in hers as they followed a maid to his chambers.

It wasn’t the grandest, nowhere near as expansive as Karalyn’s, or Robb’s. It’d been a room for a guest to stay in, not quite abandoned but relatively uncared for. However, the dust and cobwebs that lingered had been cleared away, and when Karalyn and Jon entered there was a servant stoking the hearth alive. It was compact and comfortable, enough that Jon wouldn’t feel overtly lonely.

Karalyn sat by the fire, perusing a dusty tome of children’s fables while the servants readied Jon for sleep. It warmed her heart to hear them treat the child so kindly, perhaps because the servants themselves were lowborn and rumours of Jon’s mother were circulating. Even if his mother was highborn, Karalyn supposed they wouldn’t care; a commoner’s heart has been tempered with material far stronger than that of their lieges, strong enough that they wouldn’t scoff at a boy for being a bastard. That, and Ned had a preference for letting sweet-hearted citizens work at the keep.

When they concluded their business, Karalyn dismissed them with a smile and a wave. Jon was already tucked up underneath a bundle of furs, warm, and Karalyn sidled up to his bedside.

“Would you like me to leave you?”

A two-year-old didn’t have the level of comprehension that a four-year-old did, but it seemed Jon understood her words well enough. The hesitation in his eyes was enough for her.

Thus, she sat next to him and began weaving a tale of a duck, her children, and the grey, sad one among them.

Wherever Ned had kept him away since, after the rebellion, it was clear the place lacked some maternal touch. It sickened Karalyn to think Jon had been stuck in the barracks or some back-end house outside the keep, or even in some abandoned wing where he was tended to in secret. While Catelyn could have known of Jon for a while before, it was clear she never thought to care for the boy as her own. 

It also sickened Karalyn to think Catelyn would never do so. At least in the version she was accustomed to.

It was strange to know that so much change was there, in the palm of her hands, waiting to be carried out. There was no telling if fate would insist to have its way and decimate the Starks even if Karalyn managed her best to twist it, but she figured she hadn’t been shoved into a new body in a new world if she wasn’t destined to play with the strings and puppets.

And maybe, just maybe, she could set some things right. She thought of this, as Jon’s small body curled into her side for warmth. 

She had to.

~*~

Unbeknownst to her, Sansa turned out to be a little terror as an infant – the only thing more powerful than the hue of her hair, was her lungs. Karalyn lost many nights without sleep, hearing the faint echo of her cries during the twilight hours.

Karalyn was five when Sansa was born, so she could remember her clearer than she did Robb’s early years. She’d waited to be summoned by their mother with Robb and Jon, both three, reading a book in the sidelines while the younger two clashed training swords. Their swordplay practice was underway with the iron fist of Ser Rodrik, and both thought they’d grown out of having to be tucked in and told stories by their older sister now. Thankfully, this new realization of theirs came in time with a new addition to the family.

Karalyn pegged Sansa to be as gentle a baby as she was in her more mature days. However, her little sister somehow maintained her petulant attitude while seeming ladylike; the curl of her pout was something of a legend, and she never looked outright angry, just miffed. Sansa learned early on that crying seemed to net her whatever she wanted, and while part of Karalyn swelled with pride, the other seethed with annoyance.

Nobody liked a troublesome baby, and while Karalyn smothered the exasperation within her for Sansa, sometimes it betrayed her and flushed her cheeks red.

Sansa was one, and Karalyn six, when the latter was finally allowed to entertain Sansa by her lonesome. 

Karalyn offered her a lemon cake from the kitchens and gaped when Sansa swatted it from her hands.

“What do you want to _do_ then?” Karalyn stressed. For a moment, she swore Sansa looked contemplative.

The answer was dancing. After she chucked her dolls to the floor and threatened to wail when Karalyn drew out a book, they finally reached a stalemate when Sansa managed to demonstrate her dolls dancing a parlour dance. Karalyn got up, dusted her skirts, and offered her hands for Sansa to hold. They hadn’t danced, not exactly; the only music was Karalyn’s brittle voice carrying a tune, and they simply swept around the bedchamber with interlocked fingers. Karalyn’s spine smarted something fierce from having to bend down to accommodate Sansa’s small stature.

Yet, when Sansa finally, _finally_ relented and laughed, Karalyn thought she couldn’t be happier. She beckoned Robb and Jon with her the next time and tried her best to perform on a flute as the three twirled in a circle in a tangle of awkward limbs and grinning faces.

Eventually giving up on the instrument, she set it down beside her and opted to clap along with a rhythm for their dishevelled steps. Later, laughing among her siblings, she’d been absorbed into the fray. Many-a-thing were knocked from their perch as they swivelled this way and that, bumping hips with desks and tables and drawers alike.

The ‘dance’, truth be told, reminded Karalyn of something else.

~*~

The thing about Winterfell was: there weren’t many cats.

They did, however, have a kennelmaster enlisted into their service. Provided, the hunting hounds were far more used to chasing things down rather than allowing themselves to be pursued; but per Karalyn’s unusual request, the kennelmaster managed to pick out the runt of the newest litter to train it according to Karalyn’s unwonted needs. A pouch of gold and brushing her cloak aside to reveal a dagger strapped to her belt was enough to ensure his silence – even if the man did betray her confidence, Karalyn never planned to utilize the weapon. The element of surprise was a valuable tool, however, and not many would count on a Stark to exact a death threat.

Thus, this was how Karalyn found herself spending a good portion of her time in Winter Town; it was rather easy to sneak out, and easier to part ways with her guards whenever she was escorted out for a supervised trip. Dogs were considerably bigger than cats, and while the one Karalyn worked with was not more than a pup, its gait was bumbling and clumsy, relying more on its speed and strength of its legs rather than agility and cunning. Karalyn found herself having to jump over many-a-barrel or crate instead of weaving through dark alleyways.

She supposed it was impossible to teach herself the Water Dance, anyways; the exercise provided her with some form of training to enhance her speed and dexterity, but a heat stroke would sooner occur during winter than she would openly ask her father for combat training. Such a notion would earn her Catelyn’s ire, and Karalyn found herself too cowardly to face it; everything else paled in the face of a mother’s wrath.

Other than that, she figured she wouldn’t go far, anyways. While Ser Rodrik was plenty happy to kick Jon down into the dirt without much contemplation or mercy, it was a given thing for him to hold back with Karalyn. Perhaps not out of personal want, but the fact that damaging a _lady_ , and therefore a _prized possession_ , would net him more trouble than bruising the resident bastard.

Karalyn always pulled on her cloak whenever she strayed from the determined path and would visit a decrepit, narrow offshoot of the road, wedged between an abandoned bakery and a run-down smithy. There were a pile of unused crates there, and one empty one with the lid pried open by her using a borrowed sword (Robb was rather cross with her when she returned his blade, all bent and dented). She would strip her skirts into the breeches she wore underneath, and stuff the clothing article there for safekeeping. It helped that Ned and Catelyn advised her to wear work clothes for practicality, as a lady’s heavy gown would hardly suit a stroll through Winter Town’s treacherous climate.

She would bring her training pup with her, claiming it was for safety as the mutt was now fashioned as Karalyn’s fledgeling guard dog. After smudging some grime onto her cheeks to make her look nothing more than a dirty street gamin, she set the pup loose and began the informal training. There was no set goal, or end achievement, really; just chase and keep the dog in sight, and avoid the obstacles to come on the fly.

As time passed, it came to her quicker, and her body adjusted to the practice. She started her training late, she knew, but four years was a long time to train, even when each chase lasted short spurts before duty would call. 

Slowly, as well, it became as enjoyable as it was familiar.

The wind rushing through her hair and beating on her robe and hood, she sped against the breeze, following the grey blur of a hound as it ran from her. Hair pulled into a ponytail and hood inched down to cover her scar, she was just another pickpocket on the streets; that much gave the citizens reason to avoid her, and as long as she didn’t knock anything over, she would be fine.

Vaulting over barrels, clambering atop crates and hopping off in quick succession, she found herself operating on autopilot as she pivoted this way and that. They kept to a daily route they routinely followed, and most of it was spent on the main road. One, because the hound couldn’t squeeze into alleyways, and two, because Karalyn was now ten-and-four and couldn’t very well attempt to do the same.

They were nearing the finish mark now, behind a ramshackle tailor where they’d stop to catch their breath before Karalyn would go to change and rejoin her detachment of guards. Forcing her mind on track and focusing on her breaths, the slam of her heart against her chest was almost palpable in the air. She followed her dog’s every twist and turn until suddenly, a sight made her heart pound against her ribs harder than before.

A man–an elderly one, by the looks of it–was conveying a wagon of cabbages across the street, just as her pup sped past. As Karalyn’s footsteps beat closer and closer and she gained on them, it was clear she was going too fast for the man to clear the road; and if she decreased her pace, then she’d lose the dog. The gears in her mind whirred and grunted in exertion as she thought and thought until she almost tripped over her own feet from lack of motor focus. That snapped her from her reverie, and she realized she was only a few steps away from crashing into the wagon and the poor man, the latter which had a dawning expression of fear on his face.

Thinking on her feet, Karalyn pushed off the ground before she reached the wagon – she didn’t nearly have enough courage to attempt a backflip or something of the sort, so when she barreled down, she jutted a leg out for purchase on the wagon’s wall and bounced off the minimal surface. The momentum tossed her through the air with enough force that she could brace for impact, pushing out her shoulder first to take the brunt of the fall and start on a front roll. When she did hit the ground, however, her body spun sideways instead of forward, and she felt pain lancing up her right palm where her waist ran over it in the chaos.

Silence permeated the area, now, from the commotion she just started. Sitting up, she tucked her injured hand into the crook of the opposing arm and stifled a wince, allowing herself to grit her teeth instead. 

“Boy,” a voice began, tentative, and there was the warmth where a hand lingered above her shoulder. “Are you all-”

She kicked off in a flurry of dust and snow, more eager than ever to complete that wretched day’s training.

“There you are.” Now out of earshot and having spotted the bundle of greyish-brown furs that was her unnamed pup, Karalyn advanced to it, openly wincing whenever her movements jostled her fingers. She was sure some were broken, though she didn’t dare check. As she walked, her thoughts raced a mile a minute to compensate for a story on just _how_ Lord Stark’s eldest child, out for an afternoon walk with her people, managed to break her fingers in such a way. It would be a funny tale to tell over supper, but not one she could see her family appreciating.

“It looks like we’ve fumbled a bit today,” Karalyn told her pup, who now looked up at her, black wells for eyes shining. “Well, at least I have. I don’t expect to–”

A shape, bunched in robes and miniature in size, appeared from the corner.

At once, Karalyn clamped her mouth shut. Unknowingly, her eyes darted to the dagger holstered to her belt, but before she could figure out how to draw it with two occupied hands, the shape tugged back their hood.

Karalyn gaped. “ _Arya_?”

The small girl cast her a look, seeming nonchalant as ever, as if her older sister wasn’t huffing and panting and filthy. She swept back some mousy brown wisps that escaped her simple bun and raised a brow at Karalyn.

“I went to go look for you,” Arya started, forgoing a ‘hello’ or ‘what the hell are you up to’. “The bakery was right beside the smithy, but I couldn’t find you. But then I saw a dog and a boy chasing each other, so I tried to keep up. Wasn’t easy, but I figured I’d wait where I thought you’d stop.” She bent down and scratched behind the dog’s ears. A pleased smile formed on her mouth when its tail wagged in delight. But then she straightened up again and bore her glance into Karalyn’s.

It would take her a while to adjust to her little sister’s mannerisms; Karalyn remembered that there was seldom a moment Arya ever looked her age, always depicted as mature and rather stoic in the books and the show. But trouble was still far yet, and for a blessed period in time, Arya had the chance to experience a childhood. It was as rich as it could be, growing up in the dreary North, but it was something.

Now, she looked at Karalyn with grey eyes brimming with youthful curiosity. “What are you doing?”

Karalyn opened her mouth but clamped it shut again. What was she supposed to say? _I’m training according to the regime your future sword tutor planned for you_? Syrio Forel wouldn’t be a pawn on her chessboard until at least four or five years to come, and far be it for Karalyn to spoil Arya’s skill from now, if she chose to divulge that she was training for the sword.

Then again, Karalyn thought. What troubles could they avoid if Arya learned to train with her now? If, with more time shared together, Karalyn could impart words of wisdom to steer Arya away from strife? She could prevent Arya spending time with Micah, therefore prolonging Lady’s life and allowing Arya to keep Nymeria with her, also keeping Joffrey in check. Chasing dogs would snap her into shape to she could withstand Syrio Forel’s training and absorb it quicker, maybe a difference would come of that.

Deciding, Karalyn smiled at her sister. “Why don’t I show you?”

It turned out that Arya was far more proficient at sneaking out of the castle than Karalyn was, provided she was born with a rebellious spirit and had better agility given her smaller stature. When Karalyn managed to get past gaggles of kitchen servants and slither down a deserted set of stairs to reach the courtyard, Arya was already there, wailing on a straw dummy with a wooden sword.

Karalyn whisked her away to the godswood, where there was bound to be fewer people, and they practised on the trees, footsteps cushioned by snow and clashing of wooden swords muted by the howling wind. Like this, bound in bunches of furs and only having had watched her brothers practice for experience, it was more difficult; not to mention with the grievous addition of a splinted hand. It was still something, however, and the sheer look of glee on Arya’s face whenever they fenced and Karalyn allowed her victory was enough to fill her heart.

Now, she could only hope to drive her siblings away from the destruction their paths would lead to.

Staring off into the sky as she prepared for bed, soon after their training concluded and she already brought an exhausted Arya to her bedchambers, Karalyn drew a plan while connecting the stars.

Soon, she thought. She knew what she had to do.

**Author's Note:**

> down to brass tacks ;D


End file.
